Perversion the Social Relation

Fatal West 21of limiting, castrating authority, claiming the right to take all wealth forits own. 6 It expresses, that is, the dream that it is possible to win absolute,stable command of the world's wealth. But wealth under capital iswealth only when it is fluid, endlessly circulated and allowed to functionas a signifier. All modern capitalists must, consequently, work with adouble consciousness: they recognize that capital, as a signifier, is emptydespite its profound effects; at the same time they derive the meaninglessenjoyment from money that only a fetish can command, even though thefetishized object is often no more than a fleeting electronic transaction.Piracy, then, embodies the enjoyment of a monetary fetish that legitimatecapitalism takes as the incidental consequence of its enterprise, butwhich is in fact a primary inducement for its labors.Don C. Seitz, whose story of the pirate Captain Mission Burroughsquotes, recognizes an ambiguity of motivations in idealists: Mission's"career was based upon an initial desire to better adjust the affairs ofmankind, which ended as is quite usual in the more liberal adjustment ofhis own fortunes" (xi). The problem with such a desire to elevate others,as Conrad displayed in Heart of Darknesses fortune-hunting "gang ofvirtue," is that in remaining ignorant of where they derive their enjoyment,the "benefactors" of mankind need not question what they attainmerely in passing. In saving the less fortunate peoples of the world, thepowerful stage master-servant/sado-masochist fantasies that "incidentally"exploit and destroy those who come in contact with them. Burroughsseizes this story of the pirate Mission for its sublime potential,seeing in it an American liberty that might have effectively put an endto the history of industry and capitalism by eliminating need, wealth,and class. But unlike the young Marx who imagines that the eliminationof "exchange value" will produce some authentic existence, Burroughs'simagined community evades the tyranny of authenticity by producing adeliberately and literally staged enjoyment.Burroughs's characters parody our activities, showing how social,economic, and political motives conceal some more fundamental need.Farnsworth, for example, is the District Health Officer, but he is uninterestedin typical ideas of health: he has "very little use for doctors"because they interfere with the function of his office, which is to alleviatesuffering, whether it arises from illness or desire: "The treatmentfor cholera was simple: each patient was assigned to a straw pallet on